Tempting the taste buds - Indian and International cuisine for people who love food and cooking!!

September 11, 2009

Raspberry Fool and some fun pictures!!

Welcome back to Tasty treats! I have great news to share with you all today! Finally, I mean FINALLY, I am employed!! I am going to start my job next week. Totally excited and nervous at the same time, but since I have been volunteering at the same place for the last three months, I am familiar with my work and colleagues. I got the work visa and papers a couple of days ago and is currently busy with getting everything in order before I start my work. But I will definitely maintain this blog, and will continue to share with you all wonderful recipes and stories that I come across.

Now, about this recipe - We went to a "raspberry and apple picking excursion" last weekend. We all love raspberries here, but I seldom buy them from the grocers because they are really expensive! So when we went to the orchard, I made sure to pick raspberries to my hearts fill so that I can make use of it in a couple of good simple recipes. We had so much fun at the orchard and since lil LM is almost 4 yrs now, she had tons of fun, especially looking under the leaves for bright red ripe raspberries! We had a couple of casualties, yes, when we came back home, both of us had bee-stings on our arms, serves us right for sticking our hands onto their faces!! But nevertheless, LM had great fun riding on the cow-ride, picking the raspberries and eating apples picked straight from the tree, which made us parents reeeeeally happy!

A fruit fool is a dessert made by mixing fruit puree, whipped cream, sugar and flavorings like rose water or extracts (wiki). This is one of the simplest recipes ever and gives you great flavoring options along with a great choice of the primary fruit. It hardly takes 15 minutes to prepare but is such an amazing and light dessert. If using fresh fruit that is not very sweet, make sure to add sugar to the whipping cream so that the dessert has a balance of sweetness and tartness. I actually halved the recipe and used fresh raspberries instead of frozen raspberries in syrup. So I added a bit of sugar to the whipping cream before beating.I had posted a recipe for Mango-Lime Fool earlier.

I loved the raspberry fool, it was light and airy, could have been a bit more sweet. It was a bit tart because I didnt use raspberries in syrup. It was a pleasure taking pictures of this blushed dessert, it simply was beautiful on a white background!! JM would have given it 5 stars if it were a bit more sweet. LM enjoyed her share, after all the waiting while the photo-shoot was going on! I garnished mine with grated chocolate, fresh raspberries and mint leaves.

Be sure to check out our pictures at the end of this post!! Feel free to let me know if you enjoyed my post.

The pictures above are a few from our fun trip to an orchard where we picked raspberries and apples!! It sure was a memorable trip which lil LM enjoyed a lot. JM was busy taking pictures including the ones of a grasshopper and a cute lil lady bug! I was obviously busy picking 2 cartons of raspberries for us to enjoy!! So hold on, a couple more of raspberry recipes will be coming up soon on Tasty treats....

Thanks Srilekha, Skribles, EC and Trupti!

Thanks Vani, EC and Trupti

Thanks Trupti and Sireesha

Thanks Trupti and Sireesha!

Thanks Su and Ramya

Thanks Ramya

Thanks Ivy!

Humble beginnings!

I became a fan of cooking blogs when I came to the US because I suddenly found myself to be a home-maker with little knowledge of cooking and a lot of free time on my hands. After a couple of years and experimenting with a lot of food, I started thinking about my own blog!!! But doubting my writing skills, I have been pushing it back for some time. But with a bit of encouragement from one of my close friends and a boosting jolt from my husband, I decided not to wait any further. I hope that everybody will enjoy going through and trying out the recipes.

When I first started depending on the Internet for my cooking, I came across many wonderful recipe sites and cooking blogs!! One thing I realised is that since we are being offered a lot of different versions of a single recipe on the net, we will be more inclined to try out the recipes if we know that the recipe has passed somebody else's cooking test ! A picture of the dish will definitely go a long way to aid our decision. My objective with the blog is to post some of my original recipes along with the recipes from the net that I have chosen after trying out a few of the choices available. In the case of recipes taken from the other sites or books, the actual source will be posted along with the recipe, with the tips that I found to be useful. I sincerely hope that my blog will be a further incentive for everybody to experiment with the already popular dishes ! Please post your comments so that I can improve and evolve the blog into something which will help others who need a bit of inspiration for their cooking.